September Study Guide Update: 2020

Here is a look at what I have planned for our family including our choices for home school curriculum — my Study Guide for September 2020. I plan like this for my future self. Taking the effort to plan things out is a huge time and sanity saver. Even if we don’t get to “all the things” we sure have a great list of inspiration to work from.

For reference, both my kids are roughly at a first and third grade level. Many of the resources I’ve linked to reflect that. This post contains affiliate links.

How do I come up with these lists? I take into account:

• age and grade levels
• the season
• what we’ve done before this time of year (and loved)
• what everyone is into currently
• what the kids want to learn
• what is outlined in our curriculum
• what I’m interested in
• what I find on social (follow me on Pinterest and Facebook for real time updates of my finds)
• requirements of subject areas from WA state home school law (read more here)

How do I structure our week?

This is a general overview of how I structure our typical home school week. Note: we start every day with calendar work (and sometimes time with a general workbook) but then we launch into these subjects.

• Monday: Music, Movement, Social Emotional, ASL
• Tuesday: Language Arts, Social Studies, Health
• Wednesday: Math, Science, Social Emotional
• Thursday: Language Arts, Social Studies, Health continued
• Friday: Math and Science continued

How do I structure our day?

This is a general outline of how I loosely structure our days. It varies depending on work schedules, commitments, emergencies, etc.

• quiet time
• breakfast
• morning work
• free play
• lunch
• quiet time
• afternoon lessons
• free play, crafts, outside time
• dinner
• family time
• prep for next day
• rest

Fun things about September

Fun fact! This month’s full moon (September 2) is called the Harvest Moon. More moon facts.

Check out my September Family Fun Inspiration post.

What curriculum(s) are we using for each subject?

Over the years, we have used a lot of different learning tools. Currently, our kids are around first to third grade. Many of the resources I’ve linked to will reflect that.

General Curriculum

We purchased Oak Meadow a few years ago and have three years worth of curriculum. It covers everything: art, health, science, math, language arts, music, science and more. It’s secular and Waldorf-inspired. We like it because it’s an all-in-one option for us and it was really helpful in the beginning. Since, our first foray into homeschooling, we have found other complimentary tools that work for us.

Language arts

I purchased the Dart program from Bravewriter for the year. Every month, we will read a different novel targeted for the 8-10 range. We will discuss the book and do select copy work passages.

We like read-alouds (short stories, poems and chapter books) for Poetry Tea Time. If you’re new to the idea of “Poetry Tea Time” – it is AMAZING. Want an excuse to light candles, bake brownies and snuggle up with a cup of tea? Look no further.

Other than Oak Meadow and one of our favorite podcasts from WBUR, “Circle Round,” we are in our second month of Dart from Bravewriter.

This month, we’re reading “The Prairie Thief” by Melissa Wiley. At the end of the month, we are planning on participating in a virtual book club with other families also reading the novel.

We’re also beginning our study of cursive this month. I found this book on Amazon and plan on copying pages (and possibly laminating them as well) for easy writing practice. 

I also found this Cursive Writing Bulletin Board set to put up on our wall to help with memorizing what cursive letters look like.

Music

Our family has always promoted a general appreciation for music. We play guitar, flute and piano as well as all kinds of music from our collection. We started with the recorder in Oak Meadow and have started to dabble more with playing by ear on the keyboard and music theory principles from Education.com.

Movement

Ballet is our choice for studying dance this year. We are participating in online classes with a local dance studio.

Besides hiking and getting loads of physical activity daily, we also like Go Noodle.

Arts and crafts

Our “art studio” is packed with all kind of arts supplies. That’s another blog post. Oak Meadow also offers arts and crafts “how-to’s” and inspiration. A lot of what we study here is based on what the kids are into and what the seasons dictate.

Social emotional

While not a subject requirement for the state of Washington, SEL or social emotional learning is a very important topic we cover.

Fred Rogers’ teachings has been a huge influence in my life and his work has inspired a lot of our social emotional learning.

Gratitude is another way we incorporate SEL in our every day. Learn three ways we practice gratitude as a family here.

Social studies

Other than Oak Meadow, every day we refer to our monthly printable calendar (we also track weather patterns with it.)

Health

I am taking the structure of Oak Meadow’s resources with my own spin and we’re covering: social skills, communication skills, elders and anger management. We’re aiming to cover this twice a week.

Science

The garden is starting to wind down but the kids have plenty to learn with us out in the yard. To keep things lively on the weekends, we’ll most likely do a Kiwi Crate box and or science experiments from the Magic School Bus Chemistry Lab.

We are also starting up our Exploring Nature with Children curriculum again. In the coming weeks we’ll learn about Seeds, Mini Beast Hunt, Autumnal Equinox and Harvest Moon.

My youngest also recently rediscovered an old PBS KIDS show called “Design Squad“. The premise of the show was to inspire and engage kids in engineering principles. While there aren’t many episodes, we’re planning on watching the ones they have and possibly doing a deeper dive with some of the curriculum we found on their website.

Math

Update: not much has changed here.

The kids love math and get a lot of practice in their workbooks. For a focused study, we’re aiming for twice a week. Multiplication is getting easier which means more fun quizzing each other at random times of the day.

We still love:

• Prodigy is an adventure-based math learning platform.
• Bedtime Math has been a fun way to teach practical applications and story problems. Each story ends with several math questions geared toward different age groups. They have an app, as well.
• LEGO challenge cards
• Math dice game – practice number combinations
• Moose Math – basic operations practice

Other things:

For more family fun inspiration, check out my September list.

Download my free traceable calendar (plus a grid to chart the weather) for the month of September.